


Der Schein trügt

by darkandstormyslash



Category: Deutschland 83
Genre: Dream Sex, M/M, Sexual Fantasy, historical fiction - Freeform, mention of AIDS related death, sad gay communist spies, slightly disturbing dream sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-16
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-11-19 10:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18134819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darkandstormyslash/pseuds/darkandstormyslash
Summary: Tobias Tischbier between season 1 and season 2 - mourning Felix, babysitting Thomas, and having increasingly more disturbing fantasies about Alexander Edel.Spoilers for season 1 and the first two episodes of season 2.





	Der Schein trügt

Kolibri wasn't the most stable agent, but it never occured to Tischbier that he would actually explode. It's not with a small contained blast either, when Kolibri goes off it's  _nuclear_  with a fallout zone that settles and spreads across a wide area. Tischbier, naturally, is covered in it. He was training Kolibri, responsible for Kolibri, his main point of contact. Suddenly there are rather a lot of questions being asked of him in alarmingly accusitory ways.

He blames as much of it as he can on Kramer, who is luckily and conveniently dead, and the majority of the rest of it on Schweppenstette who is less luckily disgraced. Lenora would be an easy enough scapegoat, but given she's the only other person who knows the truth about Edel's son he's not keen on anyone searching her out to ask her questions. As far as possible he keeps his head down and does as he's told. And right in the middle of the investigation - with Stazi agents, disgruntled students, and suspicious westerners crawling all over him - Felix dies. 

It hits Tobias harder than he was ready for.

Felix is part of his cover, that's all. Nothing more than an on-the-job relationship designed to help him blend and adapt to his role as a professor. Having a secret lover gives him a reason to be secretive and it's a convincing cover to blow for anyone who suspects he might be hiding things. But somehow, Felix  _is_  more, and among the grief and emptiness his death brings Tobias face to face with a reality that he's tried to avoid confronting for  years. Namely that he's inching closer to the thin delicate line that separates his job and his cover. Is he really still a spy covering as a Professor, or has he slipped too far into the life of a Professor occasionally passing as a spy? If he had to chose which to give up, and which to keep, Tobias isn't sure himself which way he'd decide.

The investigation dies down after a while, but it leaves an awkward stain next to his name that he knows will be hard to shift. It's no accident that his next job after General Edel is babysitting a student deported for selling illegal books. Clearly someone needs to keep an eye on Thomas Posimski once he moves across the border, but Tischbier isn't sure it necessarily has to be him. It certainly doesn't take up a huge amount of his time, and he's free to spend the rest of it prowling around his house, knocking back vodka, and having increasingly more alarming fantasies about Alexander Edel.

Alexander - too sweet to be ignored, too volatile to be a spy, and too important to be a casual fling. If he tries hard enough, Tischbier knows he might be able to convince himself that spending the night with young Edel had been a calculated move on behalf of the GDR. A clever plot, perhaps, designed to gain information on General Edel, and regretfully dropped once he realised the boy didn't have enough knowledge or guts to be of any use. But Tobias has never been one for self-delusion. Let men like Walter Schweppenstette hold onto their principles, their values, their self-belief. Tischbier knows he's a liar, a coward and a scoundrel, and doesn't care about it enough to try to change himself. Not at this age.

"Tobias?" Cosima asks him, one of the rare evenings he staggers in to the university. "We haven't seen you for ages, you must ... you must let me know if there's anything I can do?"

She's full of touching concern, and at least it's no lie to let the grief in his eyes mirror that in hers. She assumes, naturally, that it's Felix's death weighing on him, and he's happy to ride that excuse for as long as he can. His own negative test result came as a sharp and almost painful relief, leaving him gasping in the surprise of just how desperately he wants to remain alive. Somehow he hasn't felt even the slightest desire to sleep with anyone else since, the very thought makes his flesh crawl. Instead, he loses himself in dark fantasies of Alexander Edel, that metamorphasise from the erotic to the horrific. What started as a simple recreation of that night (the sweet soft curve of a virgin ass, the beautiful delicate cry of Alex's orgasm) grows sour with repetition. Now in his feverish imagination he's rough and ungentle, forcing himself up between trembling hairless thighs, hands gripping hard enough to bruise around the narrow hips.

"You want to know what it's like, working for the Stazi?" He hisses into Alex's ear, wrenching his hair back by the fringe. "It's like this. Hard, painful and unrelenting. Every day, for the rest of your miserable life."

Imagine a boot, as the writer says, stamping on a human face - forever. 

Tischbier doesn't need Freud to help him understand the meaning behind these fantasies. Not when only a few weeks later he's dreaming of Alex in full Nazi uniform, slung from a chain in the ceiling while Tischbier whips him bloody. It isn't about Alex anymore, or Felix's death, or even Kolibri's betrayal. This is about poor broken Germany, and Tischbier's relationship to it. Between Nazi ghosts, Stazi agents, the BND, and West German politics, Tischbier is rapidly becoming more and more disillusioned with the whole place. 

When Annette Schneider orders him into the Bundestag, Tischbier can't work out whether he's being promoted or gently tortured. At the very least, getting into the West German parliament gives him an excuse to get out of the house filled with the empty space of Felix, and something to do other than take Thomas shopping. Ironically, he's pretty sure he has more standing in West Germany than East Germany. He joins the Green Party on a wave of support for his work with the peace rallies and his legal research, all things he's actually achieved under cover, even if he's not allowed to feel any sense of pride for them.

"Do you know what happened to Martin?" Thomas asked one day, as they prepare for the trip to South Africa, the longest one they've taken so far. 

It takes Tischbier a while to remember who he means, "Martin Rauch? No idea. Most probably dead."

Thomas gives him a look which reminds Tischbier that he's sharper than Felix was, and quicker on the uptake than Alexander is ever likely to be, "Have you personally heard he's dead?"

"He has the entire secret service of East and West German after him." Tischbier answer dryly and, he hopes, flippantly. "If he isn't dead by now he probably wishes he was."

He doesn't like working with Thomas. The man is pleasant enough, but Tischbier can't help a slightly paranoid worry that Annette has sent Thomas to keep an eye on him, rather than the other way around. He's also uncomfortably aware that if he's not careful he'll end up as Thomas's next novel - the homosexual spy and the soldier he seduced.

He dreams of Alex again that night, the night before they fly out to South Africa. This time Alex isn't in any uniform, just a long peasant shirt, dirty and ragged. He's curled up in the corner of a cell, eyes wild and body bruised. Tischbier walks towards him with the slow treacle-speed dream walk, reaching down to help him up and give him water. He watches Alex's throat bob, then gently and insistently helps him into a bed. Alex is shivering, soft and plient as Tobias lays him down, stroking the long fringe out of his eyes. 

"My poor broken boy." Tischbier murmurs softly, "What they did to you."

Then he fucks him. Strong, steady and continuous, until the early alarm clock drags him unwillingly away.

**Author's Note:**

> "Imagine a boot, stamping on a human face - forever." is of course from George Orwell's 1984
> 
> "Der Schein trügt" - is a German saying that roughly translates into 'appearences are decieving'


End file.
